The two newlyweds bickered for a bit on the heated brick bed, neither paying attention to the other, before turning away to sleep.
This made it quite convenient for Zhilan, who was eavesdropping outside the back window. Listening intently and seeing that Ji Mingshan had no intention of throwing a tantrum, Zhilan could not help but feel secretly amazed.
In the past, Ji Mingshan never gave face to anyone in the palace and only feared the Empress Dowager. Who would have thought he would go to such lengths for a woman now? If the Empress Dowager were here, she would probably be so distressed that tears would fall.
Once the two of them fell asleep, Zhilan climbed up onto the window sill to lie down, facing the bright moon overhead.
The night was cool like water, and the moonlight was like silver, bathing Zhilan’s body. Zhilan reached out her hand to touch the moonlight, unable to help wondering what Jianye was like right now, and how the Empress was doing.
In Sanling Mountain, there was a group of factions with differing interests pulling against one another, but within Jianye, the situation was equally matched.
The Empress Dowager was busy trying to get rid of Prince Qi and had not realized her son had been switched. Yan Lingyi was busy trying to pull down Prince Qi’s trousers and also hadn’t discovered that Prince Qi had already sent people to start investigating her. Prince Qi was busy smuggling a scapegoat into Jianye while simultaneously juggling the task of finding trouble with Yan Lingyi, and Ning Yue was busy playing the role of her brother, occasionally taking time out to appear in her female guise so others would not grow suspicious.
Everyone was entangled with two or three invisible threads that only they themselves knew about. Some people took the initiative to pull on the threads upon their bodies, silently wrapping them around others, while others were tugged along by these threads, forced to perform all sorts of bizarre movements, dancing a helpless minuet through the silent night.
This was a grand and silent carnival, but only the moon could see it.
The next day, late in the hour of Yin.
The horizon had not yet fully brightened, and a shallow pale fish-belly white wrapped in a hint of golden light stirred among the distant clouds. Birds wrapped in morning frost swept past the eaves, and a stray breeze playfully poked into the half-open window, stirring a single lotus flower obliquely inserted in a vase on a low table. The faint fragrance drifted along with the wind into the side room, as if trying to float straight into someone’s dreams.
Ning Yue, lying on the bed and hugging a thin quilt, was lost in a sweet dream.
In the dream, Ning Yue was selecting a husband.
All the handsome men of the entire Dajin stood neatly in lines, and she walked past them. This group of men were all shocked by her beauty and vied with one another to pursue her. Just as she was pondering which one looked the best to take as her husband, she suddenly sensed someone touching her waist.
Oh my! Which husband consort is so impatient? Wait a moment! She was not ready yet!
While Ning Yue was twisting, acting shy, and pushing away in bed, she woke up.
When she opened her eyes, the person kneeling beside her was not a handsome man, but her imperial sister-in-law holding a radish.
The freshly fetched radish gleamed with tender, juicy luster in the morning light. With an expression of complete matter-of-factness, her sister-in-law calmly picked up the radish and said, “Your Highness, it is time to change to a new one.”
It is time to change to a new one.
Change to a new one.
A new one.
Ning Yue’s gaze drifted down to her own waist.
The radish that had been hanging for several days had already shriveled up, and its size was no longer suitable, so Yan Lingyi prepared to step in and replace it.
Although it was not her first time experiencing this, Ning Yue still found it somewhat difficult to accept.
Having her sister-in-law manually install a radish for her every morning, that was simply a bit too much!
Yet Yan Lingyi was quite accustomed to it. She picked up the radish, hung it in place, adjusted the angle, and tied the belt tightly. Once everything was packed up, Ning Yue stood up and shook herself slightly.
Oh my, this swinging sensation was identical to the previous one.
Sometimes she felt that her imperial sister-in-law was rigorous to an almost unbelievable degree.
While helping her tidy up the fresh radish, her sister-in-law asked with a calm expression, “What did the Emperor dream about? You kept shouting [No].”
Ning Yue’s head gave a loud buzz, and she stammered back, “I, I, I, I, I.”
“The Emperor,” Yan Lingyi prompted.
“The Emperor, Emperor, Emperor, Emperor, Emperor.”
Yan Lingyi curved her lips, thinking to herself that a little stammerer had arrived.
Ning Yue did not notice her sister-in-law mocking her inwardly, but instead braced herself and squeezed out a single sentence: “The Emperor, Emperor, Emperor is just a bit scared about attending court today.”
Today was Ning Yue’s first time standing in for Emperor Wenkang at court.
“Why be scared? Even the Empress Dowager cannot tell, and outsiders certainly will not either. Furthermore, in this consort’s eyes, Your Majesty is even better than your brother. Back when your brother used to attend court, he couldn’t utter a single useful word either and relied entirely on the Empress Dowager to make decisions.”
Before Emperor Wenkang was married, the Empress Dowager’s health was still robust, and she would go to the court to listen to politics from behind a screen. It wasn’t until later, as the Empress Dowager grew older, that she arranged for Yan Lingyi to enter the palace to take over the burden in the Empress Dowager’s hands and continue propping up Emperor Wenkang.
Anyway, they were all chess pieces. The former Emperor Wenkang and the present Emperor Wenkang had no substantive difference. If she had to specify, it was merely the difference between a fleshy radish and a plain vegetable radish.
Yan Lingyi casually picked up the shriveled radish, put it into her sleeve pocket, and said, “During morning court today, someone will submit a memorial regarding the corruption and bribery case of Minister Lin of the Ministry of Revenue. However, Your Majesty must not pronounce sentence on the spot; you must drag it out for a bit and simply have him locked away in the Tianlao prison of the brocade guards.”
Mentioning this case caused a dull ache to pulse in Yan Lingyi’s heart.
In her past life, this case happened far too quickly. Everything had solid, conclusive evidence, and Emperor Wenkang was a good-for-nothing who didn’t care about state affairs, so he wrapped up the case in a flash. The entire clan of Minister Lin of the Ministry of Revenue was executed, implicating nine generations of relatives.
Yet when the matter was later reinvestigated, numerous doubts were uncovered, revealing that Minister Lin’s death was actually a frame-up orchestrated by others.
Emperor Wenkang had wronged a loyal minister. Remembering this, Yan Lingyi felt a tightness in her chest, and her tone turned somewhat sterner: “Remember, you must not pronounce sentence on the spot. You must drag it out for three days.”
With her voice rising at the end in a slightly puzzled tone, Ning Yue uttered an inquiring “Huh?” and asked, “How does Imperial Sister-in-law know?”
Naturally because she had lived another life.
“Call me Empress,” Yan Lingyi said as she finished dressing her up, offering her a gentle smile before continuing, “These were things your brother told me before, but he fled before he had time to handle them. Now only the two of you and I are left to deal with it. You must make sure the courtiers do not spot any flaws, and speak as little as possible.”
Ning Yue was easy to fool. She neither suspected why her brother could never be found, nor questioned the falsehoods her sister-in-law was currently telling. She just kept shaking her new radish, reciting under her breath the talking points Yan Lingyi had taught her to say at court, and obediently went off to attend morning court.
This brain was just the right kind of foolish.
After cleaning up, Yan Lingyi walked out of the hall with a gentle expression alongside Ning Yue.
As the two of them were talking and walking, barely a few steps out, they ran head-on into Ji Hengge, who was being pushed along by a guard.
Sitting in his wheelchair as usual today, Ji Hengge wore a plain-colored cross-collared robe with a jade crown atop his head. His eyes and brows were calm, resembling a jade statue devoid of emotion.
Only when he encountered Yan Lingyi’s gaze did his expression grow faintly cold.
Ji Hengge was voiceless most of the time. Illness had worn down his arrogance, making him gradually grow silent, like a pool of stagnant water where ripples were hard to raise. Yet who would have expected Yan Lingyi to insist on jumping in and splashing water everywhere, making it impossible for him to remain silent like this.
This could not entirely be blamed for Ji Hengge’s inability to hold back. Anyone who encountered someone breaking through a window in the middle of the night to pull down trousers would inevitably get annoyed.
No matter how annoyed he felt inside, he had to endure it on the surface. Ji Hengge lowered his eyelids, pressing down the ripples churning in the depths of his heart.
When the three of them met, they exchanged greetings before parting ways to walk in opposite directions.
Yet right as they parted, Yan Lingyi could not help but cast a careful, lingering look at Ji Hengge.
Having missed the prime opportunity last night, she was truly afraid this Ji Hengge might just drop dead tomorrow.
Her urgency was far too blatant, almost impossible to conceal, resembling a starving dog staring at a plate of delicious roasted chicken. Temporarily unable to take a bite, she could only use her gaze to ruthlessly scavenge over the Prince Regent’s body.
Her gaze was like a damp dog tongue, brimming with primitive desire and undisguised coercive intent, crudely licking across Ji Hengge’s cheeks, sliding down his jaw into the collar of his robes, burrowing into his waist and abdomen, and wrapping around his body as she impatiently sought to plunder his vital essence.
Ji Hengge’s spine instantly tightened, and the veins on his temples throbbed faintly.
He had no doubt that if he gave Yan Lingyi a single chance, Yan Lingyi would break through the window without a moment’s hesitation.
Did she take him for something molded out of mud!
After the emperor and empress walked far away, he laughed out of extreme anger, slamming his fist onto the mechanism chair and smiling ferociously, “Sanling Mountain!”
Wu Qi, the guard pushing the mechanism chair behind him, had already guessed his intent and lowered his head in compliance: “This subordinate will go urge them tonight.”
As Wu Qi lowered his head, he clicked his tongue inwardly. Their Prince had truly been driven to extremes by the Empress.
“As quickly as possible.” These words were squeezed out almost from between his teeth.
Yet Yan Lingyi remained completely oblivious to all of this.
Parting ways with Ning Yue and watching her head toward the Hall of Mental Cultivation for morning court, Yan Lingyi proceeded alone to the Ranshou Palace to pay her morning and evening respects.
Under normal circumstances, the Empress should lead a group of imperial concubines to see the Empress Dowager. However, the Empress Dowager had held the reins of power for a long time, and once a person attained supreme power, they lost interest in the affairs of the women in the harem. Therefore, the Empress Dowager did not see those people, only requiring the Empress alone to come see her every day.
Everyone felt this was a sign of closeness between the Empress Dowager and the Empress, but only Yan Lingyi knew this was the Empress Dowager’s scrutiny and testing.
It was not merely a test of the Empress by the Empress Dowager, but also a mother-in-law testing her daughter-in-law. Matters of state and family inner quarters were all tested one by one until the Empress Dowager was satisfied.
The Star-Picking Pavilion was only a quarter-hour and a half away from the Ranshou Palace, not particularly far. When Yan Lingyi arrived at the Ranshou Palace, it was precisely the middle of the hour of Mao.
The sky in the middle of the hour of Mao had not yet fully brightened, and wind lanterns still hung beneath the long eaves of the Ranshou Palace. When Yan Lingyi arrived, the Empress Dowager refused to see her.
The arriving senior matron merely claimed the Empress Dowager had a migraine and was in no condition to see anyone, ordering Yan Lingyi to kneel and sit before the Buddha in the side hall to copy scriptures and pray for blessings on behalf of the Empress Dowager.
Yan Lingyi picked up her brush and began copying.
The floor was cold and hard, cushioned only by a thin prayer mat. The room was chilly and bleak, with only a Buddha statue facing her. A group of attendants stood nearby staring at Yan Lingyi, and the matron standing at the very front recited one by one the administrative matters of the palace that the Empress’s subordinates were currently handling.
Whenever Yan Lingyi did something well, she had to be told “That is within your proper duties.” Whenever Yan Lingyi did something poorly, the matron would knit her brows, pick out the flaw, and re-explain the palace regulations all over again.
This didn’t feel like praying for blessings for anyone at all; instead, it felt like a silent reprimand.
Yan Lingyi was not surprised. She knew the Empress Dowager did not like her.
Outsiders all assumed the Empress Dowager liked her because she was both a child of the Yan family, a blood-related niece of the Empress Dowager, and an empress personally nurtured by the Empress Dowager herself. Thus, they naturally assumed the Empress Dowager loved and doted on her. Even Yan Lingyi herself had thought so in the beginning.
However, after Yan Lingyi truly entered the palace, she discovered that the Empress Dowager actually loathed her.
Yan Lingyi was a person of such keen perception. Observing carefully, she gradually figured out why the Empress Dowager disliked her.
There were two reasons. First, the Empress Dowager was actually reluctant to relinquish power; she did not want to die. Recently, the imperial hospital had reportedly even started practicing Daoist elixir techniques of alchemist immortals just to prolong the Empress Dowager’s life, which showed her desire for longevity. Yet, she was indeed growing increasingly senile, and in order to protect her maternal clan, she still had to hand over power to Yan Lingyi. For every fraction of power she handed to Yan Lingyi, the Empress Dowager grew one fraction more resentful of her.
Second, the Empress Dowager loved Emperor Wenkang far too much, loving him to the point of feeling hostility toward every woman by Emperor Wenkang’s side. The Empress Dowager wanted to act as Emperor Wenkang’s mother, yet simultaneously treated Emperor Wenkang as her husband. Emperor Wenkang had emerged from her body and been endowed with life by her, leading her to naturally assume that Emperor Wenkang belonged exclusively to her. She refused to share Emperor Wenkang with anyone else, even though this person was someone she had personally selected for him to begin with.
On one hand, the Empress Dowager made Yan Lingyi wait on Emperor Wenkang, but on the other hand, the Empress Dowager loathed Yan Lingyi for growing close to Emperor Wenkang. These contradictory and complex emotions intertwined with one another, turning the overbearing mother and the weak son into a pair of people who owed each other yet were inseparable, leaving no room for Yan Lingyi to squeeze in.
Yan Lingyi could not help recalling the events of her past life. When Beauty Li entered the palace in her past life, the person who grew the most furious was not Yan Lingyi, but the Empress Dowager. Seeing her son love a woman so deeply and protect her so fiercely that he wouldn’t even listen to the words of his own birth mother, she had nearly been angered to death.
Back when they returned to the palace, the Empress Dowager passed away within two or three months, which perhaps had also been caused by being angered by Li Niang.
In her past life, caught between Emperor Wenkang and the Empress Dowager, Yan Lingyi had taken flak and suffered grievances from all sides. Only when Li Niang infuriated the Empress Dowager would she secretly feel a brief sense of gratification.
Thinking of Li Niang, Yan Lingyi curved her lips slightly.
That woman Li Niang was not an educated lady from the court; she was quite willful, possessing a stubborn, unyielding streak of fiery resilience deep in her bones. Back when she was in the palace, she could still be restrained by the framework of rules and reluctantly go along with Emperor Wenkang’s wishes. But now that she had returned to the village, she truly wondered how Emperor Wenkang planned to rein her in.
For the first time, Yan Lingyi felt a touch of cheerfulness arise within the Empress Dowager’s palace. Her gaze looked out beyond the palace, as if looking from this very spot all the way back to Sanling Mountain, wishing to lean on the summer breeze and ask: Is the Emperor still having a good time today?